


Hypothetical

by terri_testing



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2018-04-01 17:09:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4028020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terri_testing/pseuds/terri_testing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Slytherin's newest prefect poses a purely hypothetical ethical dilemma to one of his instructors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hypothetical

Tom rounded the corner slowly, looking abstracted. He started when he noticed the headmaster and then hurried over, stopping, however, politely just out of earshot.

Armando had been listening to Albus’s impressions of the Hufflepuff/Ravenclaw first-years just now scurrying to freedom past them, but it was immediately apparent to him that Tom was anxious about a matter of some importance. The boy’s shoulders were hunched, and he kept nervously fingering the silver badge gleaming against his robes. It was rare now to see the boy fidget so. Tom’s initial shyness at Hogwarts had given way to confidence, even assurance, as he won unstinting praise from his instructors and influence among his fellows. Armando gestured permission for the boy to approach.

Tom stammered (and when had he last stammered? Two years ago, surely, when the boy had reluctantly proved Galatea and the text wrong about the theoretical limitations on the Shield Charm), “H- headmaster? Professor Dumbledore? I have a, a ... hypothetical question. Regarding my, my duties as a prefect.”

Armando gave him an inquiring look. Tom looked at his feet and mumbled, “Maybe—maybe in private, sir? It’s a bit of an awkward question.” Armando was a little surprised, but he waved at the now-empty classroom behind them. Tom held the door politely for his seniors, giving it an anxious glance after he had closed it. Armando nodded to Albus, and the boy relaxed a bit after Albus set some strong privacy wards.

The headmaster said reassuringly, “So, Mr. Riddle. There’s something about your new responsibilities that the older prefects failed to make clear to you? And it worries you so much that you need privacy to discuss it with me? “

Tom wetted his lips and said, “It’s—it’s about what exactly my duty would be, see, sir, in certain, um, special circumstances. Which I hope will never come up, but I, I just want to be prepared. In case they ever do.”

Armando smiled a little at that. Yes, that was like Tom. Where other boys were usually satisfied with doing just enough to scrape by, nothing would satisfy Tom Riddle but to do things _right._ Perfectly. He exhibited Slytherin ambition at its very finest. Armando nodded at the boy to continue.

Tom straightened a little and said earnestly, “You see, sir, no one likes a squealer. Or, or wants to be one. So, um, now I’m a prefect, if I see someone doing something wrong, I’m supposed to punish them, right? But after I do that, I don’t necessarily have to report them to anyone higher. Right? ”

Armando nodded. Tom bit his lower lip and hesitated, looking down and hunching a little again. “But—what if, what if, I find out someone is doing something really… bad?”

Albus said sharply at that, “You expect to see something like that, Tom?”

Tom looked up and grinned reluctantly at his Transfigurations professor. “Well, sir, I _am_ prefect for Slytherin. You know that a lot of my housemates are interested in the Dark Arts and have access to their families’ libraries. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if some of them didn’t always distinguish scrupulously between legal and illegal uses. And I just—I just want to know for sure where I stand, if such a situation ever does come up. Though it probably won’t. Or at least not seriously.”

He took a breath and turned his attention back to the headmaster. “See, sir, last summer… I was reading this Muggle serial, a detective story. Um, a story, see, about crimes, and their detection, and their consequences. And it started with this man discovering that his brother-in-law had been embezzling. And for his wife’s sake, because he loved her very much and wanted to protect her family’s name, he helped his brother-in-law to cover up the crime. But then someone else found out about the embezzling, and the man—the first man, that is, not the embezzler—murdered him.

“Only, see, not to protect his wife’s name any more, to protect his own. Because in Muggle law, helping someone else cover up a crime is itself a crime—it’s called being an accessory. Isn’t it the same legally in the Wizarding World? Or even if not, isn’t it the same, um, morally?”

Armando nodded, impressed. “It’s very rare to see a young man your age think so seriously about such issues. Yes, we have the same legal principle. More importantly, you’re right; one certainly has a moral duty to protect the community by not hiding criminal activities.”

Tom frowned, clearly thinking hard. “So regular rule-breaking, like hexing in the corridors or sneaking out after curfew, I can just punish the wrongdoer and that’s that. But if, say, I caught someone performing magic I knew to be actually illegal and, and, seriously wrong—trying out a version of the Imperius Curse, say—it would be my duty to report it. At once. Right, Professor Dippet?”

He lifted anxious hazel eyes to the headmaster’s face. Armando nodded again.

Tom continued thinking aloud, speaking more slowly now, eyes fixed on Armando’s face. “And if I didn’t, if I kept quiet when I knew they’d done something like that, I’d be breaking the law myself, and I could be subject to prosecution as an accessory. As well as failing my, my moral duty to protect my fellow students, so I’d be disgracing my position. No one could ever trust me again.

“Same if someone confessed to me, say, that they’d cast something like the pain curse on a human being. But—“Tom closed his eyes in concentration, and then opened them again, “if I only _suspected_ someone was maybe doing something like that, something really wrong, I should just keep an eye on them. I shouldn’t squeal on mere suspicion. But in that case, it would be my duty to look for proof, and to report them if I found it. “Right?”

He waited for Armando’s nod, and went on more strongly, “Only… then of course if any of my housemates, anyone under my watch, ever _were_ caught in serious wrongdoing, I’d look pretty bad, wouldn’t I, for not catching them first before they got that far?

“So I’d better hope no one under my authority is ever caught doing anything really bad, hadn’t I? Because if they were, you’d look at me to see whether I should have known. To see whether maybe even I _did_ know, and hid it for them, for whatever reason.”

Tom laughed suddenly, relaxing. “But of course I hope that anyway! I don’t ever want to catch any of my housemates doing something seriously wrong. I’m like you and Professor Dumbledore that way, Headmaster, wanting to believe the best of people if I can. This is all hypothetical, and I hope it stays that way! It’s just …," he blinked and looked down, “it’s just that I know that some of my housemates have experimented with the Dark Arts. And sometimes people can slide over lines without ever quite meaning to.”

He lifted earnest eyes to Armando. “Sometimes they don’t even recognize that they have already done so.”

Tom concluded warmly, “So I’ll keep an eye on my fellow Slytherins for you, sir, and on the other students too!”

It was true that this boy was one of the few students Armando had ever seen demonstrate real leadership outside of his house as well as in it. Most of his followers were from Slytherin, naturally, but he had friends in every house. If Tom continued on his current path, he’d be the most memorable Head Boy in a century. Perhaps in all of Hogwarts’ long history.  Armando beamed at him.

Tom beamed back, obviously relieved by their little talk. His shoulders were straight again, his head high. “Thank you, Professor Dippet, for sorting this out for me. I do trust I’ll never actually find myself in such a predicament, now you’ve made me a prefect. But I just needed to make it completely clear what the position would be if someone entrusted with watching over students were instead found to have covered up a student’s crimes.

“Hypothetically.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> HBP, "The Secret Riddle":
> 
> "Tell the truth!"
> 
> He spoke the last words with a ringing force that was almost shocking. It was a command, and it sounded as though he had given it many times before....
> 
> "I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to."


End file.
